


sometimes i'm lost but i will find an answer

by towokuwusatsuwu



Series: Dragon & Bunny [3]
Category: Kamen Rider Build
Genre: Dragon Hybrids, Falling In Love, Hybrids, Introspection, M/M, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 01:20:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12830289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/towokuwusatsuwu/pseuds/towokuwusatsuwu
Summary: Ryuga thinks about Sento even as he's forced to leave Sento behind and with some advice from Reika and Sawa comes to a decision.





	sometimes i'm lost but i will find an answer

There is a distant uncertainty in leaving Sento behind even though he knows that his name will never be cleared unless he and Sawa make this trip. The hole in the Skywall is perhaps the only chance he has at finding the holes in the story made up against him, his single shot at freedom.

He knows, in the back of his mind, that Sento has Build, and as long as Sento has Build, he will be able to fight for himself and protect himself. His values still ring clear in Ryuga’s mind even as he huddles on the floor of the boat, his wings folded around him to keep the slight evening chill away from his skin, taking the light spray of water coming up the sides of the boat.

Sento has been able to defend himself and to defend the helpless people he protects from the Smash long before Ryuga stepped into the picture, and he’ll be able to do just that without Ryuga by his side to help him. So why is he worrying so much about Sento?

If anything, he should be relieved to get away from the insufferable bunny and his talk of science and values and hope. It’s all white noise to Ryuga sometimes, and he has to bite down hard on the urge to tell Sento to just stop, it means nothing to him. Why does he stop himself at all?

“You don’t look so good.” Sawa sits beside him on the boat, reaching out to pat his knee, wisely avoiding touching one of his wings without permission. “You want to talk about it?”

Ryuga supposes he should be grateful that there is another human beyond Soichi and Misora Isurugi who treats him like more than animal. “I’m… Worried, I suppose. Leaving him behind.”

Sawa’s lips spread wide in a smile. “Ah, so you have come to care about him.”

“I haven’t!” Ryuga flares his wings out in warning, but she looks unaffected. “He’s just… Sento.”

“You do.” Reika Kine comes to stand near him and looks even less affected by his wings than Sawa has, which surprises Ryuga. “You don’t have any need to hide it from us. We can see it in your eyes. And it’s perfectly fine to care about someone. You’re allowed to do that.”

Ryuga scoffs and twists away, giving her his back. “I know I’m allowed to care about people.”

“I don’t think you do. My son’s father certainly didn’t believe that after all. He’s not a dragon like you, but he isn’t human, either.” The weight of her words comes crashing down onto Ryuga’s shoulders and he looks back at her, eyes wide. “Predators don’t have it so easy, do they?”

Her words make Ryuga worry his lower lip between his teeth before he sighs. “No. We don’t.”

“I didn’t think so. When you go home, you should talk to him about it.” She pats him on the top of his head like a mother comforting an upset child. “Let yourself love. It’s perfectly okay to.”

Sawa smiles at him before moving to give him his space and Ryuga leans back against the railing behind him, lets himself look up at the stars. A bright burst of light catches his eye and he looks across the water, at the impossible sphere suspended in mid-air, the bright colors flashing within it. He can’t help but smile; he knows it’s Sento at work. Maybe using HawkGatling?

The smile slowly settles on his face and then he frowns at himself, shaking his head, running a hand over the top of his head, picking at the braids he needs to take out so he can give his hair a proper wash when he gets back home.  _ Home. _ It’s the only location in this country where he feels safe enough to relax, to sleep, and he wonders when he started thinking of it as home instead of just as another location. Part of him wonders if he considers it to be home because Sento is there, soft and sweet and yet sharp and cranky Sento. He’d have him no other way.

Theoretically, he knows he is allowed to love people. He wonders if Reika is right, just the same. That he doesn’t want to let himself fall in love again, not after his connection to Kasumi had ended with her death and an untold level of suffering. Every time he closes his eyes, he can see the Burn Smash’s weapon aimed at herself, trying to hurt herself to stop herself from hurting him, fighting against her very nature to keep him safe. His wings would have protected him from the blows, and she knows that, but she still did everything she could to protect him.

Maybe he is afraid. Maybe loving Sento would only set them both up for disaster later down the line because they have no idea what level of authority they are challenging now. What Night Rogue is a part of, where the Smash come from— This is so much bigger than either of them.

A very stupid part of him wants to stay around to keep Sento safe if he can. Without Build, without his Full Bottles, Sento has so little. His own fear playing against him could seriously handicap him and Ryuga has enough force to protect the two of them, maybe more.

And another part of him wants to disappear from Nascita and try to protect the people who had taken him in by never bothering them again. His very presence puts him in danger, and he can only imagine how much harder a conviction against him is going to hurt their people if they can do nothing to change the course of his fate. The last thing he wants to do is make everyone else’s lives harder, but he knows he can’t leave now. He’s in far too deep for them.

“You’re thinking very loudly, you know. I can almost hear the gears churning in your head, and I don’t mean to interrupt, but letting you sit here alone and feel bad isn’t exactly what a mother does.” Reika reappears in front of him and sits down across from him, propping her chin up on her hands, looking at him with so much kindness and warmth that Ryuga doesn’t know how to respond to her. “You really do care about him, don’t you? Maybe it’s not love, not yet. But it’s starting to look like that, and it’s making things that much harder for you, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know. I think so? Sometimes he prattles on and pisses me off so much that I can’t focus and sometimes I just wish I could protect him from everything he has to fight even if I know he can protect himself.” He doesn’t add that Sento shouldn’t  _ have _ to do this and if he ever finds out that there’s more to this— that Sento truly has no choice— he  _ will _ make sure there is hell to pay.

Reika smiles kindly at him. “Ah, I understand that feeling. You feel worse for wanting to protect him because you know he doesn’t need it, but the feeling is still there.”

“It is.” Ryuga laughs at the thought and shakes his head. “He’s… Really amazing, isn’t he?”

“He is. He saved me. Countless others. He’s a very good man,” Reika admits.

Ryuga smiles; he can’t stop himself. “He really is. He’s better than anyone I’ve ever met before.”

“It’s natural to want to protect someone you care about even if they can do well enough for themself. As long as you aren’t handicapping his abilities to make him depend on you, that feeling is not bad.” Reika chuckles, then leans over and touches his cheek, warm fingers against his skin. “Not everyone wants to fight on their own all the time, after all.”

“You think he doesn’t want to do this on his own?” Ryuga asks, stupidly hopeful.

“I think he might have accepted that he’s one of the only people who can, but I’m sure he wouldn’t turn down help if it came.” Reika pats his cheek, and Ryuga grins at her. “I mean that.”

She stands once more to give him space, and this time Ryuga stands as well, folding his wings back so they don’t draw too much attention, leaning against the edge of the boat. The cool spray against his face is more pleasant now, cooling him down, pulling him out of his own thoughts.

“Kind of hard to go on a date when your face is everywhere,” Sawa quips at him.

“That’s true.” Ryuga sighs, wrapping his fingers around the cool metal of the railing, his wings rustling softly behind him. “I’ll think of something, maybe. If I decide to act on this.”

Sawa hums at him. “I think you should. If you really do care about him like your eyes say you do.”

Ryuga should be annoyed at her but instead he smiles and nods, looking back toward the ocean, letting her words sink in. He has plenty to think about, but he’s happy these women treat him with respect instead of like a stupid animal who isn’t smart enough to understand anything.

Kasumi had been the same, and the memory of her stings enough to make him look at Sawa. “You know, I never thought that I deserved Kasumi. She was good to me, way too good.”

Sawa nods slowly, and he can almost see her trying to choose careful words to use with him. “I understand that, not thinking you’re deserving of someone. She seems like a lovely woman.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to care about Sento. I just guess that… Part of me is afraid I’ll just end up hurting him the same way I hurt Kasumi.” He chuckles, a self-depreciating sound. “If I had just stayed in captivity, they never would have taken her. It makes me scared for Sento. And…”

“And you don’t want to fall in love so soon after your fiancee died because you feel like you’re betraying her by letting yourself fall for someone again,” Sawa says, and Ryuga drops his head at the words. He hadn’t been able to say them aloud, but Sawa has seen through him just the same. “She would want you to be happy, from what you say about her. Am I right?”

He takes a deep breath and looks across the water again, then up at the subtly lightening sky. “Yeah,” he finally admits. “She would want me to be happy, but I still feel like I don’t deserve it. I didn’t do enough to save her, and it was my fault that she died. I don’t think that—”

“Stop.” Sawa sets her hand on top of his, fearlessly. “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t turn her into a Smash. You tried to save her. Don’t blame yourself for something you didn’t do.”

Ryuga lets her words sink in and nods to show he’ll think about them, but things are hardly ever easy and his heart still hurts enough when he thinks of Kasumi to make all of this far more difficult for him. He wonders sometimes if he likes Sento so easily because Sento is a hybrid like him, misunderstood and mistreated and someone he can understand on a level that he could never understand humans on. Of course, it’s more than that. It hadn’t been simply camaraderie that led to the long nights curled up together, Ryuga’s wings folded carefully over and around Sento to keep him warm, fingers sifting through the soft fur on his ears.

Life is dangerous for both of them right now because he’s just as wanted a criminal as Build is now, and he wonders if all of this is worth arguing about and thinking too hard about when he could easily stop thinking about it and just be. If they’re both captured, they’ll likely be killed and nothing they can do will save them from whatever comes next. Maybe Ryuga should stop thinking so much about the circumstances and just let himself experience the fall one more time.

When they come back home, he’ll wrap Sento up in his arms and try to memorize his scent. He’ll focus more on how being near Sento makes him feel, how Sento feels at night against his chest, how Sento’s leg thumps when he gets excited or when another Full Bottle is ready.

“I’ve made my decision,” he tells Sawa, and she cocks her head at him, not poking or questioning him, merely curious but not about to push him more than he wants to say, and for that, he appreciates her more than he has most humans. “When we get back, I’m going to let myself experience this. To live this. Because if it ends up that we lose everything, then I want to say that I didn’t have any regrets left. That I did everything I could to enjoy my life.”

Sawa beams at him and hugs him, so fast and sudden that Ryuga can’t prepare for it, and he finds himself hugging her back anyway. “I’m so proud of you. Sento will really appreciate it, too.”

Ryuga has no reply to that, but he grins at her and nods and feels lighter than he has in a long, long time. He wants to get through this coming day. He wants to clear his name, or at least have a chance at doing so. And more than that, he wants to go home and see his bunny.

Maybe he can’t fight for Sento, but he’s going to find a way to fight at his side just the same.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you guys so much for being patient with me ^.^ Holidays have been rough and life in general has been difficult for me, but I've taken steps to improve my life recently and I feel much better in only a couple of short days, so I think it's working so far! I finally got my inspiration back for these two. I am so sorry to have left you guys hanging for so long but I am back and I hope to keep writing more about these two very soon!


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